


Burned Pages

by KathSilver



Series: Goodbye, Mate [2]
Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: 11!Verse, Angst, Bring tissues, Canon Compliant, Coping Mechanisms, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Pain, i cried the whole time, this is the saddest thing i have ever written, trust me - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 18:30:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13793628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KathSilver/pseuds/KathSilver
Summary: Newt is gone, and he took the most important part of Thomas with him. Years go by and Thomas wastes away, determined to keep the promise that he never really made, to the only person he'd ever loved, or ever would.





	Burned Pages

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry for this, it will hurt. Trust me. I know there are typos but I couldn't see through my tears. So I'll come back and fix them later.

Life, life was a funny thing. Or, not so funny, really. Not at all once you think about it. Because with life, with living, came loss. Came pain. Came death. Life could give a man everything he needed in order to hang himself, or to jump off of a building. It could build you up and destroy you, give someone hope and watch them choke on it.

Give a man love, and watch it kill him.

When you tell stories to children, about love, true love, they would always have a happy ending. True love was this beautiful, pure, magical thing that could slay dragons and save worlds, that could mend hurts and make everything horrible in your life worth it, because at least you had true love.

But the truth of it, real true love, was the most potent weapon in the world. It was enough to both keep a man breathing, but never let him _live_ , because not all true love stories have a happy ending. Not in this world. Minho had witnessed the purest love grow from the darkest place, he had watched it become the hope that drove a revolution, the warmth in the coldest of dark corners- and then he had witnessed it shatter and destroy the man it left behind.

True love was a blessing, Minho knew this. They all did. But it was one thing to know that it was all things beautiful and good, and another to watch it rip your friends still beating heart out of his chest.

Minho would never forget it, the sight of Newt dead on the ground, cranked out with a knife in his chest. But he would also never forget the day that Thomas woke up at the Safe Haven, came out of his hut, and had this painful, horrible hope on his face. This hope that maybe, just maybe, Newt had lived. That any number of strange and crazy circumstances could have saved him, helped him hang on long enough to get the cure that Thomas nearly died trying to get for him.

Minho saw his friend die that day, there on the beach. The light inside of Thomas went out, and months later, it still wasn’t back. He didn’t think it ever would be. The only reason Thomas hadn’t given up yet was Newt’s letter and thank god for it because Minho couldn’t lose them both. Even this shell of a person Thomas used to be was better than nothing. Thomas had finally shared the words with them a few weeks ago, when Sonya had grown weary of wondering what Thomas read all the time.

None of them had been prepared for the answer.

It had felt like reading something private, intruding on a solemn moment between two lovers- and wasn’t that the greatest tragedy of it all?

He’d asked Thomas, one day, early on when they were still in the heart of their grief, if he and Newt had ever figured it out. If they’d ever told each other how much they loved one another. The answer broke his heart.

“Not in so many words,” Thomas whispered, staring off into the stars. “But we knew. I knew, he knew. It was in the glances, the touches. They way we looked first to each other when something happened, the slow nights at the camp fire where we wouldn’t say anything at all. It was in how we cared for each other, how we supported one another. We never acted on it, I don’t know why I didn’t. I guess I wanted to wait, so that I could do it right, not be rushed by panic and war. So that I could kiss him slowly and hear him give that shy little laugh of his, so we could have our quiet, and our peace. We never spoke about it, never needed to, because we knew. I saw it in his eyes every day, even when the virus had him. So no, we never actually said it.”

Thomas paused, gathering in a shuddering breath as though he was about to drop the grandest revelation in all the world, and Minho waited with bated breath to hear it.

_“But God, every day on this earth without him, I wish I did.”_

 

 

_Newt didn’t really understand how time worked here, and he didn’t care, not really. All he cared about was the fact that if he stared down into the eerie water that surrounded him, he was able to look down on the world and watch what was going on below, with the people he left behind._

_With Tommy._

_His poor, sweet, Tommy who even now looked up into the stars for him, lots in the depths of despair. Sitting next to Minho he looked so small, so stark against the easy landscape of the beach, sending Newt words of love even now._

_“Don’t worry Tommy love, I knew. I swear I knew. You didn’t let me down, I swear it,” Newt would whisper, but it never worked. Tommy could never heard him._

_“You haven’t even noticed that we are here, have you?” A voice spoke up from behind him, and Newt had to fight to tear his gaze away from the water and this window into life in order to find the source._

_It was Alby, and Chuck, and Winston._

_“You’re here?” Newt asked, somehow calm at finding them._

_“Of course we are,” said Winston. “You called for us, every night. You really thought we wouldn’t be here to greet you? To take you home?”_

_Newt remembered his nightly ritual of saying their names, and felt a wave of affection for his friends, and hated that he had to disappoint them._

_“I can’t go with you, I can’t leave him.”_

_“We know,” they said in unison. “We will wait with you.”_

Sonya didn’t know Thomas very well, but she knew a thing or two about grief, and love, and secrets. And she had one that was horrible, terrible to keep, but she couldn’t manage to get Thomas to stay around her long enough in order to share it.

It’s not like she didn’t know the reason, she did. Minho had approached her one day, pulled her over to the side, and explained.

“It’s the accent,” he’d said. “It’s too hard for him to listen to your voice and not wish it was his instead.”

And so Sonya understood, and kept her distance. She watched as every night, Thomas would leave the campfire and make his way back to his lonely little hut by itself away from the others, but first he would always stop at the stone. He would stop at the stone, feel the pendant around his neck, and then trace Newt’s name gently, lovingly, so tenderly, before lowering his hand and continuing on.

A year of watching this routine, Sonya approached him near the stone, and placed her fingertips on his shoulder, causing him to pause.

“I know listening to me isn’t easy, and I’m sorry for that, but there is something I want to share with you. I know it won’t help, but…” Sonya began, suddenly nervous now that she’d begun.

But Thomas just smiled at her with his kind, sad eyes. “What can I help you with, Sonya?”

Always what he could help with, that was always his response. What he could do for them, not the other way around.

“WCKD, they… when they had me, they did something that allowed me to retrieve some of my memories. Not many, but a few. Namely those of my family.”

Thomas’s eyes widened, and he took a step back, his fingers instantly going to the pocket they all knew held Newt’s Letter.

“Yes, actually. Newt was my big brother, his original name was Sam, and—”

Sonya didn’t get any farther before Thomas reached out and pulled her into a bone crushing hug, cutting off her words and oxygen both, but she returned it just as fiercely.

Before too long, he released her, and held her hand in his. The tears in his eyes looked natural there, at this point. Neither happy nor sad, just a part of Thomas. He led her down to the beach where they spoke until morning, Thomas sharing his memories of Newt, in trade for her memories of Sam.

It felt like a miracle, that day, when Thomas opened up and shared with her. He shared with her how he’d slowly fell in love with Newt’s determination to keep up, despite his leg, and his ability to mother them all in oblivion.

“He was so caring, just this one kid stuck in the mess with the rest of us, but he never failed to try to take care of everyone.” Thomas said, a fond smile upon his face. “I don’t think I really noticed falling in love with him. It happened so gradually. He was the only one who never doubted me. Challenged me, god yes, but he never doubted. He never faltered. Newt was this amazing presence that was always at my side, never letting me give up. And one day, we were sitting in the Scorch by the campfire after a horrible day, and he gave me this speech about how there was a place for us all somewhere. And that we’d lost so many of our friends to find it, that we couldn’t give up, that he wouldn’t let me. And I looked at him and I knew. I knew I loved him, and that I would go to the ends of the earth if only he would go with me.”

The sweetness of the statement caught Sonya off guard, and she found that she didn’t know what to say. Thomas was sharing such beauty with her, his love for her brother, and it felt like a gift she would never be able to return.

“I would have loved to call you my brother,” she whispered, a small part of her brain thinking how tragic it was that these two people who loved so truly could never have anything so binding as a ceremony that linked families. But Thomas reached up and cupped Sonya’s cheek before placing a kiss to her knuckles.

“Aren’t I, though?” he asked, and she couldn’t help but laugh a little bit. Because he was right.

There was no ceremony more binding than the trials they’d undergone for one another, and Sonya had to fight the unfairness of it all with a smile. Love, and family, they were all what you made it. And if Thomas was willing to be her brother, then she would have him with open arms.

 

 

_“A sister…” Newt whispered, wiping at his eyes. “How could I not have known, been so blind!”_

_He sat at the edge of the water, staring in disbelief at the scene below him, afraid to miss a single moment of it. It didn’t feel like it’d been a year already, the watching. Time was so still here, all that mattered was down below._

_“Watching isn’t easy,” Alby said. “You could come home with us and wait there. It won’t hurt as much, and they will find their way to us eventually—”_

_But Newt was already shaking his head, wiping the tears from his eyes, watching his little sister and the love of his short life hold each other in the sand._

_“No, I can’t leave him alone. I left him once, I can’t do it again.”_

_And so they stayed, and Newt watched on._

“I can build you a better house, you know,” Gally spoke up form where he worked alongside Thomas, building a larger school house. They didn’t need it yet, but they would soon. In the five years they’d been there in Paradise, growing and healing, the population had started to shift a bit. It wouldn’t be long before kids were a common sight, and not the kind they all were when they came from the maze.

Children that would actually be able to be children.

Thomas didn’t always come to help Gally build, sometimes he was off in the fields, off cooking, off cleaning, doing any job that he could find. But when he did come to help with the building Gally would always take the time to talk to the man, to try to feel him out. To try to understand what it was that drove him or held him still. The first day Thomas had showed up and grabbed a hammer, Gally had almost sent him away.

Until he saw his eyes.

Gally knew those eyes, he saw them in his own reflection. It was the look of a broken man who needed to do something, build something, _make_ something positive in this world to help another soul. Because maybe the act would heal some aching part inside of them as well. But it never did. So that day Gally welcomed him, and taught him what to do, and worked by his side. And then, when the work for the day was done, he took Thomas out to his own workspace and gave him a mallet and a chunck of wood.

“Hit it,” he’d said.

Thomas didn’t ask questions, just did as he was told and struck the wood.

“Again,” Gally told him. “Again. Again. Again.” Each time met with the strike of mallet on wood, until Gally no longer needed to tell him. And Thomas just hit, and hit, and hit, in time with his heaving sobs. Gally cried with him, that day, and felt their relationship mend, though they never spoke about it. Thomas was easiest to relate to, he realized. Because Thomas understood the guilt that came from killing someone you loved. It was a different kind of love but love all the same.

A small huff of laughter brought Gally back to the present, and he saw Thomas climbing up onto on of the support beams to get a better angle on a nail. Thomas was like a wraith, too thin. Gally would have to have a talk with Frypan about that.

“I don’t need a better house, Gally. This one fits me just fine.”

“That one was built in like five minutes when we first got here, because we needed to keep you out of the rain, it wasn’t meant to be lived in.”

Thomas shrugged, his face not betraying any emotion. “It’s perfect for me, though. Thomas sized.”

Gally tried not to let his frustration show. “Exactly, Thomas sized. What if you want to have someone live with you at some point? Like, start a family?”

He knew the pointlessness behind the suggestion, but the part of him that was loyal to his friends and wanted to see them happy couldn’t relent. He understood grief, but it had been five years. Even though that hadn’t been enough, it _was_ still possible to find someone to share his life with.

Thomas climbed down from the beam and gave Gally a small, sad little smile, before responding. “But who could compare?”

Thomas tried walking away, but Gally held him by the arm. Thomas didn’t fight it off, he never fought anything anymore, and that was part of the problem. “Look, I’m not trying to push, I swear. I’m just worried about you okay? We all are, but none of us know how to approach it.”

Thomas turned to Gally, and his eyes were just as haunted as they’d been that day five years ago when he’d grabbed a hammer and asked for work. “What do you want me to say? That I’ll get better? That I _feel_ better? That I don’t wake up every single morning and ache to hear his voice? That I don’t read his letter every night, tracing the words he wrote because its all I have left of him? That I don’t feel his warmth seeping into my skin as I lay there to fall asleep? That I forget how to breathe because he isn’t here with me? I know to all of you it’s been five years and you think that by now I should have shown some ‘progress’ or whatever you call it, but there’s none to be made. I loved him then, I love him still, and that’s not going to change.”

Gally’s heart clenched in his chest. “I-I wish…” but he stopped, not wanting to cheapen Thomas’s emotions by adding his own. But something about Thomas’s eyes encouraged him to go on. “I wish I knew that kind of love,” he whispered.

Thomas smiled at him, the only small, sad, smile he ever gave anyone anymore, “You will.”

 

 

_Newt shook his head, before hanging it low. Guilt began to creep in, slowly. It wasn’t meant to be like this. He never meant it to be like this. “Five years, and he still… damn it! I wanted him to be happy, I didn’t know it would kill him like this. He’s pushing everyone away, I didn’t know it would do this to him, I swear I didn’t!” Newt sobbed._

_Alby looked at him from where he stood to the side, his gaze held no sympathy for his friend. “Yes, you did.”_

Frypan could never push Thomas out of the kitchen, despite how much he sometimes wanted to. But having him there underneath his watchful eye was the only way that Frypan could be absolutely positive that the man would eat. He was 28 years old and it didn’t look like he’d gained a single pound since he was 16, and they all knew why. Thomas just didn’t let himself enjoy things anymore. Well, no, that wasn’t quite right. ‘Let’ didn’t have anything to do with it.

Thomas just couldn’t _find_ the enjoyment in things anymore, like the part of him that laughed and found joy died that night in the streets twelve years ago.

Hell, the only meal Frypan knew he could make Thomas that could make him feel anything was his stew, but he just didn’t have the heart to do that to his friend anymore. Not when the only emotion it brought to him was pain. It’s just, Frypan couldn’t stand to see him like this.

It was worst in the morning, he’d found. Because that’s when Thomas was fresh from his dreams, ripped out of the arms of the man he loved, to find the world a cold, hard, place without them. Frypan understood, life hadn’t been the same since Zart had been taken by the Grievers, but even then, Frypan had still managed to find some measure of happiness and comfort in another’s arms. The man was part of the Right Arm and was the only other person that Fry would let run his kitchen if he needed a day off.

It wasn’t love yet, but it was getting there. But he didn’t think that Thomas’s would be the same.

Thomas never asked for anything, never began a conversation unless it was to ease someone else’s burden or worries. His life was dedicated to taking care of others, the survivors. He broke his back doing whatever was needed- he lent a caring ear, a hug, some advice, anything that was requested or wanted from him. But the one thing, the one thing he couldn’t do for them, was even pretend to be happy.

It wasn’t like the never saw him smile, they did. But it was at soft things, little things, like Sonya’s laughter when it filled the air, laughter that sounded so much like someone else’s. Whenever they would gather around a fire and share stories, Thomas would smile and share his own, some stories about he and Newt that somehow, they’d never quite heard before. Frypan would see him smile through his tears as he read the Letter, or traced Newt’s name as part of his nightly ritual.

And he smiled for the joy of his friends, when they found it. Thomas had smiled when Frypan had found his man, and Frypan witnessed Thomas smiling now, as Minho told him that he was going to ask Brenda to marry him.

Shit, even Frypan was smiling for that. They all knew she would say yes, that Jorge would be thrilled, and that for the occasion so would be Thomas.

But that’s not the part of the interaction in front of him that made Frypan feel like he was 17 again, 17 and small and watching his boy get taken from the hut after making sure Frypan was safely inside.

“Are you happy, Minho?” Thomas asked, his voice barely there. The question made his heart clench, because that was danger talk, from Thomas. They’d all discussed it, years before, after reading the Letter and seeing the task Newt set him. They knew that if Thomas felt like his job was done, that’d be it. There wouldn’t be anything holding him to this earth anymore. And call them selfish, but they just weren’t ready to see him go.

“I’m afraid to answer that, Thomas,” Minho responded, the joy leaving his face in place of fear and sadness.

“Why?” Thomas questioned, baffled at the change in his friend. Minho sobbed, because this wasn’t a thing any of them ever talked about, never.

“Because,” Minho said. “Because I’m afraid that if I say yes, you’re gonna leave me too.”

Tears fell from Frypan’s face too, then. And Thomas’s. And Frypan tried to leave the two their time alone to grieve and maybe heal a bit, but they pulled him back in. And yeah, okay, maybe Thomas didn’t have Newt anymore, but god damn it that didn’t mean that he no longer had a family.

“I won’t Minho. I won’t.” Thomas said.

But they all knew it was a lie.

Later, when Frypan went on his nightly walk and heard grieved sobbing coming from the hut that stood on its own, he would have a debate about whether or not to go in. Concern would win out, and he would enter to find pages strewn about the room, and Thomas on the ground, beating at the sand.

They would talk, and scream, and cry, because it didn’t matter how happy Thomas was for his best friend for getting to marry the love of his life, it just wasn’t fair, because Thomas had never even gotten to kiss his.

 

 

_“He was supposed to be happy,” Newt whispered. “To move on.”_

_Chuck came up to stand next to him, looking down on where Thomas and Frypan were curled up, sobbing on the beach, miles down below and in another world._

_“But, how could he? He loves you. He doesn’t know how to stop, Newt. And it’s Thomas. When he loves… he loves with everything he has.”_

_The answered didn’t help the ache in his chest, or the pain and not being able to comfort him._

_“This isn’t helping you, Newt. You’re killing yourself.”_

_“I’M ALREADY DEAD! I’m dead, and I left him once and I refuse to do it again, not- not again.”_

_And so they stayed._

Brenda was nervous, she didn’t know how Thomas was going to take it, the news of what they’d named their son. But she asked to be the one to tell him, to bring him the baby when he got back from the trip for more materials.

She saw Thomas get off of the boat, and make his way inland, and so she grabbed her son- her beautiful, baby boy- into her arms and began to make her way down to them.

She saw Thomas’s face when they were spotted, heard the whoop of joy leave his mouth, and felt a small bubble of hope form in her heart. This was already the most animated she'd seen him in close to 15 years. Thomas was so careful when he reached them, being quiet and trying not to get to close. His face was alight with happiness, and she couldn’t wait any longer.

“Would you like to meet your nephew, Thomas?”

“Seriously? Are you really asking that question?” he laughed, still trying to be so quiet.

“His name is Newt,” Brenda whispered, heart in her chest. And she saw the exact moment that it registered on his face, because Brenda didn’t know how a man could look so broken but overjoyed at the same time.

Thomas didn’t even bother to fight the tears from rolling down his face, or the sob from his chest. He looked old, haggard, far older than the 30 years he claimed, and his hands were shaking so hard that Brenda was afraid they would fall off.

“Can—" Thomas began, but the tears were coming down too hard for him to finish. “Can I—”

He was gesturing towards the baby, and so Brenda gave him over, showing Thomas how to hold him, how to make sure his neck was supported, but she needn’t have bothered. He did it all perfectly, of course he did, there wasn’t a single day that Thomas couldn’t be found down in the nurseries.

Brenda’s breath caught in her chest at the sight, Thomas crying and laughing over her baby boy, delicately tracing his fingers down his face, in awe and wonder. There was so much emotion there on his face, and so strong, and it was a sight that she’d hadn’t seen in… so long. So damn long.

Maybe there was hope for Thomas, maybe this child could heal him where nothing else could, mend the pieces of his heart just enough for him to not be a ghost in his own skin. She’d spent so long staring in amazement at Thomas and her son that she hadn’t noticed that Thomas’s burst of laughter had drawn a crowd, a crowd of people seeing the same thing that she was seeing, and that were crying just as she was.

“Hello, Newt,” Thomas whispered. “I’m going to take care of you.”

 

 

_“They named him after…me?” Newt was dumbfounded. He’d been a part of their lives for only a few years, yet here they were triple that amount of time after his passing and he was still with them. It was so touching, so unexpected. But that wasn’t the best part._

_Tommy, his Tommy, has laughed. And smiled. And it was the most beautiful and breathtaking sight he’d ever been lucky enough to witness, after so many years of saying he would have given anything, anything at all for Thomas to have just one, single, moment of true happiness._

_“Not to cheapen the moment, but this was how I felt when Gally named his daughter Charlie.” Chuck said._

_Both Winston and Alby punched him on the arm._

Newt was 10 years old when he realized that his uncle Thomas wasn’t happy, but it wasn’t until he was 17 that anyone told him why.

As his birthday present, Newt had asked his Uncle for one night, just one, where Newt could ask any question in the world and be given an honest answer. He knew that Uncle Thomas would do it, because he did anything that Newt would ask. All throughout his life there was hardly a single moment where Newt couldn’t remember him being there, always helping, always loving, always smiling a smile that no one else ever received. But Uncle Thomas lived alone, and no one ever told him why.

And so he asked. He asked many questions that night- Where did my name really come from? Who was he to you? What happened? What are you always so sad? Did you love him? What was in the Letter?

All the way up until he asked his final question; Why do you stay?

Newt wanted to say that 17 was too young to know all of this, to hear of all this pain and suffering and hurtful joy, subdued happiness, and intense, gut crushing, soul wrenching longing. But his namesake was 17 when he was ripped from his Uncle Thomas, so 17 wasn't that young at all, really. And after it all, Newt was full of rage, rage at his parents, at Uncle Thomas’s supposed friends.

And so he gathered them, with tears in his eyes and pain in his heart, he called them all together: Mom, Dad, Gally, Sonya and Frypan. And he judged them, and shamed them, and asked them the one question that he couldn’t shake from his mind.

“Why the hell haven’t you let him leave?”

They pretended like they didn’t know exactly what he was talking about, but Newt was having none of it. He looked his dad right in the eyes and glared, “Dad, if you don’t release him from his promise, I will never forgive you. Just… just let him go _home._ ”

And then Newt collapsed against his mother, crying at the unfairness of the world- at the fact that he knew what would be there waiting for them in the morning if his father did as he asked. His dad started to cry, they all did. But nodded.

“It’s time, it’s way past time. Newt would kick our asses for this, if he knew.” His Dad said, wiping tears from his face and running his hand through his graying hair.

And so they all walked down to Uncle Thomas’s little worn down hut on the beach, and Newt could only just overhear what was said.

“You did it, Thomas. You kept your promise,” His dad cried. “We aren’t going to hold you to it anymore.”

Uncle Thomas smiled, and hugged his oldest friend, but already it looked as though some of the lines were gone from his face.

 

 

_Newt watched Tommy rise up from the waters with his heart in his eyes, and the joyous sob at seeing him, his Tommy, 16 and young and healthy again, ripped from him before he could hold it in._

_They were flying towards each other, sprinting, and the hug they caught each other in felt like coming home, and the kiss they shared- so soft, so sweet, so tender, everything Newt had always known it would be._

_“I love you,” they whispered, in hushed tones and with wide eyes, and in no rush. Because now they had all the time in the world._

_Finally, Alby, and Winston, and Chuck led the way for the them all to go home, and when they opened the door to the Glade, Newt’s heart burst with so much love and happiness, and sorrow._

_But there would be time for apologies, and explanations, and tears._

_There would be time for everything._

They held the burial the next day, after finding out that Thomas had passed away peacefully in the night, no signs of external aide necessary. As though it was Newt’s request alone that held him to this earth.

The hollow loneliness in Minho’s chest was almost too much to bear, and there wasn’t a dry eye to be found at the burial, and then the bon fire that followed. It was one thing to know that your friend, your dearest friend, was finally at peace, but quite another thing to deal with the fact that they were _gone._

Minho approached the fire, holding the items he carried tightly in his hands. The necklace, holding the pendant that used to carry the Letter, Minho placed around his neck. It would be something to be passed down, in their family, or in Sonya’s, they’d work it out somehow. But what mattered was the papers he held. Pages that were so worn down and faded, that it was impossible to tell what they’d once said. But they knew.

It held words of love, of a love that couldn’t be found anywhere in this world once it left. Of a love strong enough to topple empires and raze the world to the ground, or to build a new life for a generation. Of a love so strong to be dangerous, that all who beheld it were honored to witness.

Minho took the Letter, and tossed it into the flames, so it could travel home at last- nothing more than burned pages on the winds.

As his final act, the final thing he could do to show respect and love for quite possibly the strongest man he had ever known, was walk to the stone for those who had Fallen before Paradise and etch in a new name. Thomas had died, that day, when his love had left this world. He’d died and never really come back, although they’d all tried to hold him here with whatever they could.

And so Minho did them that last honor, etching Thomas’s name right next to Newt’s, where it belonged, reuniting them together once more.


End file.
